Pirates – Island Outpost

This Island Outpost takes a classic LEGO Pirates setting and gives it an AFOL twist using modern building techniques

This model was inspired by a LUG challenge focused around the Pirates theme. While I usually only make a few Pirates builds each year, it has always been one of my favourite genres. The one limit for the challenge was that your entry had to be no bigger than the largest official Pirates set.

I have always been more attracted to the islands, forts, and land settings than ships themselves, so I settled on building a small fort on an island. A single 32×32 baseplate served as the foundation for the model. Since the fort was going to sit on its own island, with water completely surrounding it, I had to keep the building layout quite small. Incorporating the typical pointed walls, accomplished via hinge plates, of a bastion fort added some nice angles to the model, while a small tower in the back corner gave some height. The wall colour scheme went through several iterations, before settling on white with bits of tan and bley for texture. The fairly new tan profile masonry bricks added a bit more detail.

The tower roof is comprised of 1×1 round bricks, and is actually 9 studs wide, giving a half stud overhang on either side.

Inside the fort you find a small jail hidden under the cannon emplacement, some supplies, stairs, and even a cot for the soldiers.

The gun loops use upside down 1×3 arches and SNOT 1×2 tiles to capture the proper shape. Since the wall is 2 studs thick, I also included a larger cutout space behind the window so that the soldiers would have better firing angles.

Every island fort needs a dock, and some stacks of SNOT headlight bricks allowed me to achieve a neat plank look.

See more of Isaac’s work at his Flickr feed, which can be found under the handle soccersnyderi.